A little more money, but the new Pre-Pro Yamaha recently announced (CX5000), "11.2 channels", looks pretty interesting and I am strongly considering it when it is available in the next couple of months. I always had a preference for the Yamaha's especially because of their movie soundfields. Also, their upper end Aventage series AVR's along with this new unit from what I have observed generally have better warranties(4 years) than most others which are 2 or 3 years.

Casey, i'm not even gonna sweat the 600$. i can wait until there are some reviews and comparisons between the yamaha unit and the two above.

Thanks for pointing that unit out.

On a side note, accessories4less is also an authorized yamaha dealer... So, i may be able to grab it for below retail from them.

Yep, that is interesting, from what I always remember and I may be wrong about this, "A4L" wasn't always a Yamaha dealer, concentrating mostly on Onkyo, Denon and later Marantz. With this new Pre-Pro from Yamaha under discussion, I would expect if they ever do get it, you may have to wait awhile.

I am assuming you are in the US otherwise, there hasn't been much to choose from lately for someone like myself, because, for some reason, it seems more and more of the A4L suppliers are banning sales of a lot of their stuff outside of the U.S. Of course, this was always the case with Onkyo for pretty much every U.S. based reseller that I have seen even including Amazon.

i've bought from them before, and i'm fairly certain johnk has as well. they currently have yamaha products listed. The interesting thing is A4L already has the marantz av8801. However, this doesn't mean they will get the new yamaha eight away....

i've got a Krell HTS. 7.1 right now.. i didnt want to go with another Krell unit because other manufacturers have exponentially more features, and i so t think i will notice a difference in sound quality....

I'll most likely put my Krell on audiogon, they are going for 1,300-1,900$ or so... So, the marantz should be nearly free...